Courting Carrie in Wonderland

by Carla Kelly

  He shared his binocs with a girl no older than eight or so, who wore a starched dress, her hair in ringlets. He answered her questions about geysers and bears, and thought of another girl working long hours in the Railroad Hotel in Bozeman, hoping for enough to eat, and to not be yelled at.

  Dusk was settling fast when kitchen flunkies from the Fountain Hotel dragged up a cart containing two 42-gallon drums of kitchen leavings and scraps from the dining room. The bleachers were full of spectators, everyone leaning forward in anticipation.

  Ramsay saw orange peels mixed with coffee grounds, and seasoned with hunks of lard and bones, a perfect bear stew far easier to obtain than hunting all day in the woods, snuffling bugs from rotten logs and trying to snag trout from fast-moving rivers. Stale bread and old cake amounted to a recipe no bear should eat and remain healthy and independent of people.

  His heart turned over as he thought of bears nosing around the closed-down hotels in the fierce grip of sudden winter, wondering when the free meal was coming. They waited too long sometimes, putting off hibernation until they froze outside hotels empty now. Sitting there with the visitors on the bleachers, waiting for the bears to arrive, he knew it was wrong.

  “Here they come!” someone shouted, and Ramsay looked beyond the man’s pointing finger. Sure enough, three bears walked toward the garbage pit, their heads swaying from side to side.

  Unable to help themselves, some of the more impetuous tourists left the bleacher and raced to the wooden rail separating them from the garbage and the approaching bears. Some of them waved pieces of bread in their hands, calling to the bears as though they were pets.

  Ramsay left the bleacher too. He hesitated only a moment but then waded into the middle of the group, shouting at them to move back. He stared down the angry faces and ignored calls of “Killjoy!”

  “These are bears,” he shouted, “not pets. Move back or I’ll ask you to leave.”

  Grumbling, the visitors did as he commanded. He turned his back on the bleacher and tried not to hear demands for his name and unit, and the who-do-you-think-you-are question he had heard earlier from a woman out of her element who could still sling around her prestige in a hotel lobby.

  The bears came at a run now, veterans of this garbage treat. Ramsay kept waving the spectators back to the bleachers, wishing he could take each tourist one by one, to sit with him by a fast-moving river and watch bears pull trout from the stream, instead of crunching down egg shells and slobbering over gravy. Watching these beautiful animals slurp down leavings from breakfast, luncheon, and dinner both appalled and saddened him. He might ask Captain Chittenden about that fine line between entertainment and education, between observing cheap tricks like this, and watching wildlife in nature.

  The crowd dispersed when it was too dark to see anything else, and the bears lumbered away, full of garbage. Dutiful now, the tourists followed an escort from the hotel who led the way with a lantern. Discouraged, Ramsay stayed where he was until everyone had gone.

  His melancholy didn’t last long. A young family still remained in the bleachers. He recognized the girl who had looked through his binoculars and seemed interested when he told her about bears hibernating, and mother bears coming out of their dens in the spring with little ones to teach and train.

  “Sergeant, tell us more about this,” the father said.

  “Happy to,” Ramsay replied, and asked them where they were from. As it turned out, Papa was a stockbroker who worked on Wall Street and took a train home to New Rochelle every night. Mama, a bright-eyed, intelligent-looking woman, probably maintained a lovely home in the suburbs.

  Their two daughters sat next to him on the bleacher seat. “What can I tell you about Wonderland?” he asked the one—Alice, she informed him—who had shared his binoculars.

  “Everything,” Alice said solemnly. Her parents chuckled, obviously used to this child of theirs.

  As the sky darkened, he told them about cone geysers and hot springs, and bears and even wolves, which meant little Alice scooted closer to him. She assured him magpies, ravens, and blue jays were more to her taste, and her little sister wanted to know about chipmunks. The wolves could wait.

  When the younger daughter started yawning, Papa pulled the plug on more questions, but with regret. He shook Ramsay’s hand, wished him well, and let Ramsay set the girls on Xerxes as he walked with them back to the hotel.

  In the lobby, Ramsay shook hands all around again. Alice held his hand the longest. He squatted down to look her in the eye, which made her mother say, “You have excellent instincts, Sergeant Major Stiles.”

  “Some day I want to do what you do,” Alice told him.

  “Be in the army?”

  “No, no. I want to tell people about Yellowstone.”

  “Honey, I don’t know if it’s something the ladies can do,” Papa said.

  “Why not?” Ramsay replied, and smiled inside to see the huge grin on Mama’s face. “I know a sweet lady who sticks up for the bears. You can too.”

  “Your wife?” Mama asked.

  Ramsay was all set to blush and deny. Instead, he looked at the kind woman, took heart from her interested expression, and replied, “Not yet. We’ll see.”

  “You can probably do what you want because you are a man,” Alice pointed out, ever practical.

  Ramsay glanced at Papa, who shook his head. “Honey, even I don’t get everything I want,” Alice’s father said.

  “We should all get what we want,” Alice said firmly.

  Ramsay admired this child, who had opportunity and ease ahead of her, and maybe enough gumption to tell visitors about bears, if the army ever left Yellowstone to another as-yet-unknown agency. He thought of Carrie, and wished she could meet Alice. He took the thought a crazy step farther and imagined a daughter of his own like this. In the lobby of the Fountain Hotel, with a string quartet playing something Mozart-y, anything seemed possible.

  “I have no doubt that you might teach tourists someday,” he said, and straightened up. “Start by studying animals and fish and birds in school, and go where your fancy takes you.”

  Alice nodded, her eyes serious. “Thank you, sir,” she said, and gave him a small curtsy that went straight to his heart.

  He watched them head toward the elevator, his mind clear of the discouragement that had descended as he watched the bears guzzle down food nature never intended them to eat. Even the lobby, where he had spent some awful moments earlier in the day, had turned into a friendly place.

  At the elevator, Alice turned to wave at him. In return, Ramsay snapped off a salute better than any salute he had ever given, including the one to President Roosevelt in January. She saluted back.

  “Now I have to see a bear about an indiscretion,” he murmured, as pretty ladies flirted with equally elegant gentlemen in the lobby, and the quartet played on.

  Chapter Seventeen

  With Xerxes stabled for the night, Ramsay went back to the hotel and knocked on Mr. Bell’s door. He opened it on Mr. Bell’s invitation and told him he was headed outside to watch for the bear. “Will you be here if I need your assistance?” he asked.

  Mr. Bell promptly turned pale, the second time in their brief acquaintance, leaving Ramsay to wonder how the Yellowstone Park Association chose its fearless managers. “I … I … ,” he began, and got no farther.

  “Stay in your office until I turn up something,” Ramsay ordered, speaking in the voice that always worked wonders with mint-green privates. “And lay off the sauce. That is an order.”

  Mr. Bells raised his arm as if to salute but then stopped and stared at his hand as though it belonged to someone else. “Just get rid of the bear. That’s all I ask.”

  Ramsay found a broom and a place to sit on the back steps of the Fountain Hotel. Sitting in the shadows, he observed a maid and a chef wander hand in hand toward the gravel path that led to a campfire in the distance. They stopped to smooch and then disappeared behind one of the outbuildings.

&nbs
p; “Going rotten-logging, are we?” he asked and envied them.

  In the distance, he saw the bonfire of the Wylie Camp at Fountain, too far away to provide any warmth as he shivered in the shadows. His conversation with Alice from New Rochelle still warmed his heart and left him with questions of his own. He knew the army couldn’t stay in Yellowstone Park forever. Cavalry troops had been patrolling here for twenty-one years. He wondered how long the army could shoulder such additional duties. It remained for more exalted ranks than his up the chain of command to make decisions. When it happened, Ramsay hoped there was a place for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

  He chuckled over that bit of Lewis Carroll humor, then sat up, alert, as something materialized out of the shadows so close to him that he felt the hair rise on his arms. Improbably, he sniffed the fragrance of rose talcum powder. He watched in open-mouthed amazement as the shadowy form turned into the young lady in the lacy dress who had pushed her way into Mr. Bell’s office as he had left it earlier today.

  Silent and stunned, he watched as she took a handful of what looked like cookies from her handbag and set them on a window ledge. She stepped back, and Ramsay heard another sound that made the hairs rise even higher.

  Moving slowly, but coming closer with every step was a bear of epic proportions. Ramsay held his breath then let it out slowly, relieved not to see the telltale hump of a grizzly. How brave do you feel right now? he asked himself, and decided he was brave enough.

  He spoke quietly to the oblivious young lady who stood by the ledge. “Freeze. There is a bear behind you. Don’t move or speak.”

  The woman froze. He heard her whimper and he told her to stop. She did.

  “I’m going to try to scare the bear away,” he said. “When I move and yell, kneel down where you are and put your hands over your neck and head.”

  Ramsay unsnapped the cover on his sidearm, wincing at how loud that little noise sounded. He gripped the broom and leaped off the porch, shouting, “Hey bear! Hey bear!” at the top of his lungs. The woman shrieked, but she did as he commanded and dropped to the ground by the window, hands over her neck.

  Startled, the bear reared back, sank onto his haunches and flopped over as if someone had shot him. Ramsay charged toward him, yelling and swinging the broom in front of him, which seemed suddenly to have shrunk from a broom into a coat whisk. With the same singleminded fury that had driven him deep into the cave at Palong Batan, he ran close enough to the bear to shoot him at pointbank range, not that his little popgun of a Navy Colt would have made a dent.

  He smelled a powerful odor and realized with a jolt just how terrified the bear was. Thank goodness he hadn’t eaten much in the last six hours; better let the bear be indiscreet. Ramsay stood still, breathing hard, and watched as the bear righted himself and took off in the opposite direction, knocking over some barrels but making good time.

  Ramsay let out his breath in a rush until he felt dizzy. He leaned forward, hands on his knees, until the blood returned to his head. He looked at the young woman still crouched by the window ledge and knew what his next step was.

  He kicked aside the broom he had dropped while regaining his balance and walked to the window. As she still crouched there, looking up, her eyes still fearful, he swept the cookies into his hand, pocketed them, and then picked up the girl around her waist and slung her over his shoulder. He knew he could keep her there no matter what she tried.

  Tourist over his shoulder and pounding on his back now, Ramsay banged on Mr. Bell’s office door and opened it without waiting for an invitation to enter. Mr. Bell stared at him, mouth open, as he set Miss Talcum Powder down in one of the chairs and closed the door. Heads had started to pop out of doorways and this didn’t need an audience.

  “Why are you manhandling one of our honored guests?” Mr. Bell managed to stammer.

  Ramsay yanked the cookies from his pocket and slammed them on Mr. Bell’s tidy desk, where they disintegrated into chaff. “Because your honored guest put these on the window ledge of … of that nearest numbered room!” He turned to glare at the young woman, who tried to look defiant and failed. He watched as her lips quivered and her big eyes filled with tears. “If you think I can be swayed by tears, miss,” he said, “you are wasting your time!”

  She burst into tears, which sent Mr. Bell scuttling around the desk, handkerchief in hand. He darted angry glances at Ramsay, which lasted until Sergeant Major Stiles gave him The Stare. Quietly, Mr. Bell returned to his seat and cowered there.

  Ramsay took a deep breath and then another. He sat in the chair next to the weeping woman. He picked up the handkerchief Mr. Bell had dropped in his terror and put it in her hand. “Blow,” he commanded, and she blew.

  “Did you realize there was a bear about twenty feet behind you?” he asked, his voice calm now.

  From the depths of the handkerchief, she shook her head.

  “How many times have you put something on one ledge or another?” he asked. “Give me a straight answer.” And then he couldn’t resist, because it wouldn’t hurt to impress Mr. Bell too. “The guardhouse at Fort Yellowstone is not a good place for young ladies, but believe me, I’ll put you there.”

  He let her cry, feeling a bit like the Thorne brothers who had terrified Carrie, but only a little. “Your answer?”

  “Four days.”

  Ramsay turned to Mr. Bell. “The lady who occupied that room … had you been moving her too, with each disturbance?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “That’s Sergeant Major,” Ramsay snapped, weary of both of these sillies.

  “Sergeant Major,” the hotelier said. “I’ve moved her four times and every time the bear found her.” He had his own question for the young woman, who blew her nose again. “Miss Marchant, isn’t she your grandmother?”

  Miss Marchant nodded.

  Ramsay couldn’t help his own stupefaction. “Why, in heaven’s name, were you doing this?”

  Miss Marchant sat up in the chair. She looked around and must have seen no sympathy in the room. She retreated to the handkerchief again and took a deep breath. “I just wanted to scare her so bad that she would go back to Mammoth Hot Springs and let the rest of us enjoy Wonderland.”

  “What was she doing?” Mr. Bell asked.

  Silence from Miss Marchant.

  “I suspect she was acting like a grandmother,” Ramsay said. “Making you behave, and not wanting you to go off with one of the drivers, or maybe a camp man or bellhop? Was that it?”

  Miss Marchant nodded and retreated to the soggy safety of the handkerchief. Ramsay turned his attention to Mr. Bell. “Sir, go get the grandmother.”

  “It’s after midnight,” he started to protest.

  “I don’t care. Do it.”

  Mr. Bell scurried from the room. Ramsay leaned back in his chair, at a loss. He thought about the kind and practical Carrie McKay and asked himself what she would do. It didn’t take long. Maybe he knew her better than he could have imagined, especially in a mere two weeks.

  “Miss Marchant, if someone else had been watching, someone with a high-powered rifle, that bear would be dead now,” he said and felt the weight of his own sadness. “Some of us in this park love those bears. We want them to remain alive. That was one of the mandates set down by President Grant himself, when Yellowstone was made a national park.”

  He glanced at the young lady, heartened to see she was listening to him.

  “Bears are opportunists. The stinkers want the easy way out, because foraging for food in the wilderness can be tough. That bear will be coming back here again and again, because he knows there are cookies somewhere.”

  She started to cry again. “I didn’t know. What will happen?”

  “I’m going to post soldiers at this back door all summer if I have to, to make sure the bear gets the message that handouts are over,” he told her. “It’s a bear’s nature to act this way and he won’t be shot for it. Not on my watch.”

  She was silent then,
and he waited. “I’m truly sorry,” she whispered. “I just wanted Granny to let me have fun.”

  “I understand, Miss Marchant, but you’ve got to realize this is an animal preserve, not some wonderland.”

  “But people feed bears all the time.”

  “I know. They shouldn’t,” he said. He thought of serious Alice and her concern for wildlife and contrasted her with this silly girl—silly, but maybe repentant.

  “I predict that in a few years there will be so many people and towns, and horses and railroads, that the wildlife will need a safe haven. I know it’s hard to imagine, but that time is coming. Think about that for a while and grow up.”

  He heard voices in the corridor, and opened the door on an elderly woman in a nightgown and robe, looking fearful. Her eyes softened when she saw her granddaughter huddled in the chair, crying again, but maybe not for herself this time. Ramsay could only hope.

  “Sergeant Major Stiles, Mrs. Evans,” the hotelier said and retreated to the safety of his chair behind the desk.

  “Tell your grandmother what you were doing,” Ramsay said, offering his chair so Mrs. Evans could sit down.

  In fits and starts, the granddaughter admitted a short lifetime of crimes and misdemeanors, going all the way back to ink in her teacher’s tea in primary school. I put the fear in her, he thought and was not disappointed. The older lady sat with her arms folded and her back rigid. As Ramsay watched, her expression softened.

  When Miss Marchant was silent, her grandmother put her hand on her arm. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you how much you remind me of your mother,” she said finally.

  “Mama did things like this?”

  “Other things.”

  The matter could have teetered in any direction, but Ramsay had to give the palm to Mrs. Evans, who was made of sterner stuff than her granddaughter. Fixing her own stare on Miss Marchant she shook her finger at her. “Evie, did you ever wonder why your mother ended up going to school in a convent?”